[Taxacom] Taxonomy - crisis, what crisis?

[Robin Leech]

Hi Guys,
When I was in Africa with Ed Ross in 1957-58, he often said that he would
much rather collect new records 
for known species than collect more new species.  New species means a lot of
work.
Robin

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Doug Yanega
Sent: October-05-11 2:42 PM
To: TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Taxonomy - crisis, what crisis?

Neal wrote:

>I think their analysis missed a very important point.
>
>They say that given the decline in numbers of species described per 
>taxonomist since 1950 there must be a declining pool of species. 
>This does not take into account that some taxonomists are simply not 
>publishing new taxa anymore -- for various reasons (greater admin 
>time, teaching duties, grant writing for them and students, studies 
>focusing more on evolutionary relationships, etc.).
>
>I would contend that we have plenty of taxonomists but the current 
>financial climate and funding priorities overall do not support 
>describing new taxa anymore.

I'm not so sure they missed this point, so much as they buried it 
amongst their caveats regarding the distinction between people who do 
ONLY taxonomy versus those who do other things *in addition to* 
taxonomy. It is at least possible to read between the lines to arrive 
at this conclusion, and I - like Neal - believe that this *must* be a 
large part of the explanation for the trends. I know plenty of folks, 
myself included, who have published a small number of descriptive 
taxonomic works, but whose career trajectories and job 
responsibilities interfere with (if not totally preclude) the pursuit 
of descriptive taxonomy on a regular basis. If everyone who ever has 
published ANY descriptive work is counted as a taxonomist, then 
certainly it is no surprise that - by that definition - there are 
more taxonomists now than ever before, but that very much misses the 
central problem underlying the crisis. A more reasonable approach 
would be to calculate man-hours spent on descriptive taxonomy, rather 
than simply counting heads. I don't imagine that anyone on this list 
would expect the former parameter to show an upward trend, even for 
groups with large numbers of undescribed taxa. This is a remarkably 
crude analysis by these authors, ultimately, and I cannot accept it 
at face value.

Sincerely,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

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